- [Instructor] In a previous lesson,I broke down the basic idea of what it meansto edit in context using the GTD system.But just to briefly review,the idea is to organize your daily editing tasksinto different mindsets, such as watching footage,doing your first cut to doing notes, music,sound effects, and so on.When organizing specific tasks in this wayit minimizes the amount of time and energyrequired to shift your focus,which then allows you to edit fasterand with more clarity.In this lesson, I'm going to walk you throughhow I specifically create timeline presetsto help me stay focused.

We're starting here in OmniFocus,which I showed you in previous lessonson the GTD system.Very briefly to review,step one was to capture all of our random tasks.Step two was to organize them intospecific single actions, as well as projects.And then step three was to startorganizing them into contexts.So you can see that we have music,dailies, first cuts, notes, sound FX,we have backgrounds that are also part of sound FX,and we just have some busy work.

Now I'm going to show you how I apply these specific tasksin an editorial setting in my NLE,which is going to be Avid Media Composer.We're inside Avid Media Composer nowand in a previous lesson in this course,I walked you through how I nameall of my individual audio tracks,and you can see that I have dialogue tracks,background sound FX, hard sound FX,sound design, and music.Now just before going forwards,I want to mention again, this isn't aboutdoing it in Avid Media Composer.

I want you to recognize the conceptof how I organize all of these things.And don't pay attention so muchto the buttons that I press or the menus that I selectif you're using Premiere, Final Cut, or another NLE.Just pay attention to the ideaand apply that to your own specific workflow.So what I like to do is work specifically in contextrather than just work chronologically.So let's say for example, I have a whole bunch of notesto do in this one timeline.And I have to make editorial fixes here.

I need to change out the background soundsfrom here to here.This sound effect didn't work,somebody said to add a sound effect here.One of the producers said they don't like this queue,and they would like me to replace it.And then I have some dialoguethat needs to be fixed over here,and I have to replace this take.It's very common to just work through your sequencechronologically, but in my mind, that's inefficient.I like to focus specificallyon one type of editing at a time,so I create timeline presets.And here is how I do that.

Once again, this is how I do it in Avid,the system's going to be a little different in other NLEs.In Avid specifically, what I want to dois select all of the tracks that I want to hide.So I want to get rid of all my extraneous video tracks,and I'm going to create my first preset,if I'm doing dialogue-only editing,so I want to keep these unselectedand I'm going to select the rest of these tracksby just holding down shiftand going down to the bottom here.The first step is I'm going to go to my fast menu,show track, and I'm actually going to hide selected,and you'll see this is SHIFT+CMD+H,which I'll be using for the rest of the lesson.

So I hide selected and now I'm onlylooking at my dialogue tracks,but I want to drill much further down in detail.So with Avid, I'm going to hold down CMD+Lto make my tracks larger.And then the next step is I want to turn on audio waveform,so I go to audio data and waveform,and in a previous lesson when I built this,I was just using template media and using tone,which is why you don't see waveforms.In an actual sequence, you would obviously see waveforms.

So what I want to do is create a template for thisthat I call dialogue.So now I have a dialogue-specific timeline preset.But I want to go back and do this for all the others.So I want to go to show track, I want to show all,and now it's going to throw a whole bunch of stuff at me.So what I want to do is hide all the tracks that I don't need.So I'm going to get rid of all these on the bottom.And again, CMD+SHIFT+H.

I want to bring all of these tracks back to the right size.And instead of CMD+L, I'm going to do CMD+K.And now everything fits in to one window.Now I'm going to create my background preset.So because I want these to show,I want to hide everything else,except for my first track of video.Once again, CMD+SHIFT+H.I want to make this larger so I can reallydig into the waveforms, if I had actual sound files here.

Same process, go to my timeline presets,save as SFX(Backgrounds).And you'll notice that when I go back to show all,I have to go through the same process.So guess what?We're going to create a default preset next.So I'm going to choose all these tracks that I don't want.We're going to hide these.And rather than having to inefficientlygo through over and overand do this one after another,now we create our default preset.

So now we always have a home base.So I'm going to put this back to where we started,until it just is at the point where I have everythingin one space and I don't have to scan.So before I go further, I'm going to create my default presetso I don't have to keep going back to this.So I save as default.Now I always have a home base to go back to.The next step is I want to create my hard sound effects.

And my sound design, so CMD+SHIFT+H.Same process, I'm going to make these larger.And now that we have actual sound waveforms,you can see how clearly I can get into the detailof these tracks if I need to.This is going to be SFX(Hard FX).And now it's super easy to go back to my default settingand create my last preset.So I deselect all, all I want is music.So I'm going to select all these,minus my first track of video.

So I'm going to select CMD+SHIFT+H.Show music only.Once again, I want to make this much largerso I can really get into these music waveforms.Save as MUSIC.And now I can very quickly togglebetween my default setting,my dialogue, my music, my backgrounds,and my hard sound effects.

And here's why, from a mental and creative perspectivethis is so important.Going back to what I said earlierabout doing all of these chronological edits.If you're doing a dialogue edit here,and then you're doing a sound effects edit here,and then you have to replace this music here,you're switching between different creative mindsets,which is taking different parts of your brain.So if you're here and then all of a sudden you're like"oh yeah, the producer said"I need to switch this piece of music."Let me just jump into iTunes"and see if I can find a different piece of music.".You're going to lose your train of thoughtand you're also going to be taken out of Avid,and that's something you want to try and avoid if possible.

So for example, if you can go into your dialogue presetand do nothing but dialogue edits,because you physically can't see that piece of music,you're not going to remember that you have to replace it.So it's going to kind of like be that string that you seehanging off of a sweater,where you pull, pull, pull, pull, pull,and then eventually the sweaterjust kind of dissolves into nothing.That piece of music is kind of like pulling on that string.You want to keep that out of the wayso you don't think about it,and you can focus on the task at hand.

So now that you have your timeline presets ready to go,you can easily switch back and forthfrom one context to the next.And the other great benefit is thatwhen you hide your tracks,you're not going to be distracted by other media,so you can focus on the specific creative task at hand.

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Author

Updated

12/12/2017

Released

4/18/2017

You've heard the importance of working smarter, not harder—but have you taken the steps needed to make this a reality in your post-production projects? This series is designed to reveal productivity tips you can use to optimize the time and energy spent on the overhead involved in video post-production. Join film and television editor Zack Arnold as he shares how to keep your editorial projects organized, manage cumbersome email communications, keep track of tasks, use time effectively, and more. He focuses on how you can minimize busywork so you have more time for creativity.

Topics include:

File management

Time blocking

Cleaning up your email inbox

Organizing and prioritizing notifications

Selecting apps to help you with task and time management

Filtering email messages and paperwork

Skill Level Appropriate for all

4h 16m

Duration

19,962

Views

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Q: Why can't I earn a Certificate of Completion for this course?

A: We publish a new tutorial or tutorials for this course on a regular basis. We are unable to offer a Certificate of Completion because it is an ever-evolving course that is not designed to be completed. Check back often for new movies.